


Warm

by RavenXavier



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: But mostly fluff, Canon Era, F/M, Fluff, I guess there's a tiny bit of angst, M/M, Multi, also nothing happens really, and bossuet is very much in love which surprises no one, except everyone is happy (and alive), thanks prouvaire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenXavier/pseuds/RavenXavier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No, truly, I can see no other future than this. You will be Joly’s wife, and I will be the mistress of you both. What a pleasant life to have!”  he grinned and let his head fall on Musichetta’s lap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cloudsandpassingevents](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudsandpassingevents/gifts).



> So first of all, an apology: I finished this story late and I couldn't ask someone to beta-read it in times, so I'm so SO sorry about this - I'll promise I'll ask someone anyway and edit as soon as possible so you can enjoy this story more! 
> 
> Second of all, MERRY CHRISTMAS. (Or holidays, because maybe you don't celebrate Christmas). I'm hoping you'll like this story; the part with Les Amis wasn't supposed to this long, but they have this thing when they just keep talking and I don't have the heart to stop them x). 
> 
> Have some awesome holidays!

Winter in Paris is a sad thing. The sky and the trees are mourning the lost of the Summer's sun, the cold enters everywhere, even in the richest homes, and leaves the door opened for sickness in turn. It is really only when seated next to a good fire that you can appreciate it, and even then, it is only to say: _thank god that I am inside and not outside._ Nothing can remedy that subdued environment. Even snow, which is naturally one of the most beautiful Nature's treasures, becomes only mud under the hurried feet of Parisians and the wheels of carriages.

Jean Prouvaire, whose melancolic state had been clearly touched by the awful weather outside the Musain where all of Les Amis were still seated even though the hour was growing impossibly late, sighed loudly, attracting the curious stare of the ones closest to him. He was looking mournfully at the window, seemingly uncaring about the fact that Grantaire was half-asleep on his shoulder.

“Snow, really, is wasted in cities,” he declared. “That a thing of such beauty and purety should fade to dirt – white into brown into nothing, and that only because of the uncareness of townmen – makes me want to weep. Isn't it already what we see in the human nature too often? Isn't it what we are trying to eradicate? I hate the sight of snow between buildings; I cannot even call it snow at soon as it touches the ground and turns into that pitiful brown, I feel it would offend Mother nature.”

“You’re blaspheming, monsieur Prouvaire!” Bossuet cried, falsely outraged. “Snow is welcomed everywhere, and it is as true in the cities as it is in the provinces. It's for a very good reason too; Snow announces to everyone that a very important event is coming. It is the birth of a little boy called Jesus – you may have heard of him – who offered us one true gift: a day without work and some presents. I, for one, couldn’t be more excited when snow begins to fall each year. Why should I care about its colour? It is what It means that really warms my heart.”

“Why, monsieur Lesgle, I am shocked!” Courfeyrac grinned cheerfully. “It seems to me that you are talking like a true _bourgeois._ You should think more before speaking – I hear there are some violent _revolutionaries_ in this room!”

A ripple of laughter echoed among them all, except for Prouvaire, who looked distressed still and turned his eyes towards Bossuet, ignoring Courfeyrac’s jest.

“It may be so,” he said, his mouth curved downwards and his cheeks slightly pink, “But you should think of what snow means for other, more unfortunate people, my friend. To the woman who lost her husband and trails behind her several children, it means more sickness and more troubles. And what of our gamins? Snow for them is half a Death sentence already, for there are not so many places in the streets of Paris that can warm their little feet and hands – and the food! Where do they find food when every home is closed to keep the cold outside? You will have your presents, and they’ll have darkness.”

“You are always so gloom,” Bahorel told him, fondness creeping into his voice.

Prouvaire blushed a little more, but his gaze was steady when he looked at all of his friends: “Can anyone deny that I am telling the truth, though?”

“We cannot,” Enjolras replied gently. “Do not forget that we are fighting for these people – we are aware of their situations, and we want our Republic not only because it is our right, but because it is good too. One day there will be no more famished families, nor children dying in the streets because they have nowhere to go. We are helping them by seeing beyond this winter; you hear how the people are growling already. Before the end of next year, they will have bitten. The world is changing; we should hope and not weep for now.”

It made Prouvaire smile a little. Bahorel clapped his hands.

“This sounded like a conclusion,” he said. “An inspiring one, if I may say so. I didn’t expect anything less from you, Enjolras, of course. Let us not forget our goals, even if we have to part for the next week or so. For my part, messieurs, this is the last you’ll see of me until 1830. I have been told by my siblings that they will not let me go before that and they are all little monsters from which I can’t escape.”

His declaration awoke the room once more, and soon everybody was telling their own plans for the next weeks. Courfeyrac, Combeferre and Prouvaire sounded delighted at the idea of heading south again to see their families. Enjolras simply said his mother wanted him for Christmas.

“Bossuet and I are staying in Paris,” Joly said, then cleared his voice to announce louder: “If any of you is still here for the 25, I expect you to come dine with us – Musichetta has some recipes that she wants to try, and we’d love the company anyway.”

Bossuet pocked Grantaire in his sides. The man jumped, surprised, and looked at him with great affront, which only served to make Bossuet grin wider.

“Will you be with us again for Christmas, Capital R?”

“I would,” Grantaire repied after a new second of confusion, “There is no lovelier face in Paris than Musichetta’s after all, and I would gladly suffer another day with you both if it means spending it with her, too.” (Joly squealed with indignation and Grantaire’s eyes sparkled with amusement). “Alas, my dear friends, for some unfathomable reason my sister wants me for Christmas, and she’s so terrifying that I haven’t dare say no to her.”

“I would like to meet her,” Bossuet said. “She sounds like a creature from the ancient stories. I cannot possibly imagine a woman that can scare you until I’ve seen it.”

“And that is why I will never let any of you come near her,” Grantaire retorted with a grin. “I shudder to think of such meeting’s outcome.”

Bossuet rolled his eyes. Joly turned away from their conversation and looked at the other tables.

“So, who’s coming then? Feuilly, I assume?”

“I’ll be here as soon as the mass is over,” Feuilly agreed with a smile.

“Send an invitation to Pontmercy, too!” Courfeyrac said. “He refused to let me take him home on the account that I would have to pay for the journey and it would break my heart if I knew he had to spend Christmas alone; he’ll protest, but I beg you to insist. He’s too young to be so severe about letting himself have pleasant things – that is something only Enjolras can manage without being terribly depressed.”

“We will then,” Joly nodded.

He looked at Bossuet again – Bossuet was looking at him already. They both smiled at each other and rose from their chairs at the same time.

“Well then, friends,” Bossuet said, “It is time for us to go home – Good night. Come back to us as soon as possible, and bring us back presents!”

“Bourgeois!” Courfeyrac cried.

“I am too poor to be one!” Bossuet cried back.

*

Bossuet’s good opinion of snow was greatly diminished by the time they arrived to Joly’s lodgings (which were his too, although he’d never had to pay a sou of the rent). Despite his hat, he couldn’t feel the tip of his ears anymore, and the cold snowflakes had fallen on his bare neck, reminding him the loss of his last hair which had protected him somewhat the year before. He missed his hair.

Joly, too, looked miserable. His nose was red and he kept blowing on his fingers, hoping to revive them.

“We’ll have a cold for Christmas and won’t be able to do anything we have planned,” He said dramatically when they finally passed the rooms of their lodgers and took the stairs.

“You may be right,” Bossuet admitted because he was shivering under his coat, “but a cold should never stop a man from going through his plans. Would you miss the revolution because of an inconvenient nose? No! Well, Christmas is the same. If we are sick, we’ll only have to drink more wine.”

“You are preaching with the voice of Grantaire,” Joly laughed.

“I clearly spend too much time with the damn man,” Bossuet retorted cheerfully.

They had arrived. Joly pushed the door and they entered still laughing. However, they both stilled when their eyes caught the sight of Musichetta.

The young woman was lying on their couch, reading a thick book with a deep blue cover that Bossuet had never seen before. She was already dressed for the night and her long and white nightgown fell deliciously on her every curves. Her hair was down, too. One her curl was stuck in her cleavage. Bossuet suddenly wanted nothing more than to liberate the poor thing and let his hands, in turn, caress the dark skin of his mistress.

“I would have sworn I felt sleepy just a minute ago,” Joly said beside him. “And yet I’ve never been more awake than right now.”

“I think we should still go to bed,” Bossuet replied. “Although maybe not to sleep.”

“You may go if you wish,” Musichetta declared without a glance for them. “For my part I will stay here a bit longer; this book is fascinating.”

“What, more than us?” Bossuet exclaimed with exaggerated indignation.

“Well, maybe not,” She conceded with a private smile. “But it stayed in my hands all evening, and it is definitely warmer than any of you.”

“Is it a reproach?” Joly asked, almost worried for a moment.

“An observation only,” Musichetta replied reassuringly. “Your fingers have turned purple from the cold, my darling.”

She was not wrong. Despite the warmth of their home, they were both still shivering, although they’d forgotten about that particular discomfort for a minute. It came back to them with a vengeance. Joly glanced at his fingers, then at Musichetta, and then at their fireplace – his mind settled on the fire. He left Bossuet’s side to go sit near the flames, and sighed happily.

Bossuet was a little bit more stubborn perhaps. He was of that race of men who would happily forgot everything that was wrong in their life if a pretty girl passed in front of them. Musichetta had that power on him, although he would have argued with anybody that she wasn’t pretty but beautiful, and that she was definitely more a woman than a girl – a delight, of course, to both Joly and him.

“I beg for a kiss,” he said to her with his softer voice.

“You will have it when your lips have found some colours again,” Musichetta replied with a knowing smile. “It will require patience.”

“I swear there is no cruellest mistress than you in the whole of Paris,” he accused her.

“Go warm yourself,” she ordered good-naturedly with the voice of one accustomed to theatrics.

Musichetta had spoken; Bossuet obeyed.

He sat in front of Joly who grinned at him knowingly when he couldn’t hold a little hum of pleasure. Now that the flames were so close, surrounding him with sharp warmness, he felt the need to lay here and let the crackling of the fire lulling him slowly to sleep. Instead he stared at Joly, who was looking at his hands again. The light made his face even lovelier than usual; his cheekbones seemed higher, his eyelids longer and his nose thinner. The contrast between shadows and glow would have made a great painting, he mused, and then he wondered idly if Grantaire would agree to paint Joly for him one day.

“Our bloods need to circulate again as quickly as they can,” Joly declared suddenly at his palms. “We should get warm water and some oil I bought last week; then we’ll massage our hands, and it should do the trick.”

Bossuet didn’t feel like moving ever again. Instead, he took Joly’s hands into his own.

“Look,” he said, holding them close to his mouth. “Here’s a trick of mine.”

He kissed each knuckles with great tenderness. Joly flushed, though his eyes softened.

“The blood is rushing to his head,” Musichetta pointed out from the couch. “Your trick isn’t efficient.”

She was mostly in the shadows, now. She must have blown out the oil lamp that was near her when they’d been looking elsewhere. From his place on the floor, he could only see clearly her little feet and her silhouette, moving along with the hypnotic dance of the flames. Yet as lovers often do when they can’t see the face of their beloved, he could imagine her smile in the dark. Her eyes had to sparkle. They always did when she teased.

“Do you have something else that could help our poor Jolllly?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Musichetta said. “Let me try.”

She rose gracefully from the couch and walked to them before nudging Joly’s legs apart. When he realized that she meant to sit again between them, Joly tried to protest:

“Your dress –”

“Can be washed at any time,” she finished and offered him a smile before doing exactly what she had planned. She leaned against Joly and took his arms to put them around her waist. She didn’t let go of his hands. Instead, she began to rub them gently together. “It is so rare to have you both here and so calm,” she whispered with amusement. “I want to enjoy this as thoroughly as I possibly can.”

They stayed silent for a while after that particular conversation. There was no desire to fill it but no tension in any of them either. It was true that moments like those were rare; Joly was often at the hospital, Bossuet ran from street to street every day, working or talking to strangers, and Musichetta herself had her work in the little shop of hats in the Rue Chanvrière. Even when they were home, Joly and Bossuet were no languid nor silent creatures; they were the happiest when they laughed, and they laughed often and loudly, causing some agitation more times than not.

It was not to say that this – all three of them cuddling in from of the chimney silently – bored them. They did not agree to this only for Musichetta. It was just that they wouldn’t have thought of this by themselves, maybe. Which was why, Bossuet would say sometimes, it was good for them to be three and not just two. You could forget so many good things, if you were only two; especially when you shared such a close temperament, as Bossuet and Joly did.

“Have you talked to your friends about Christmas?” Musichetta asked after a moment, her cheek resting against Joly’s shoulder.

“Feuilly will be here as always,” Bossuet replied.

“And Courfeyrac wants us to invite Pontmercy,” Joly added.

“I don’t think I met this one yet,” Musichetta said. “Isn’t he the fellow that got you out of school, Bossuet?”

“My saviour,” Bossuet approved cheerfully. “You’ll like him, I think.”

“He’s a delightful mix of awkwardness, passion and pride,” Joly said fondly. “He has no social skills whatsoever, but he’s even younger than Prouvaire, and it’s rather cute.”

“Well, that should be interesting,” Musichetta declared.

Silent fall once more, but it was interrupted far more quickly than before:

“I want us to be exactly the same way in fifty years,” Joly sighed happily in Musichetta’s hair.

“It would be easier to imagine without the threat of your Revolution,” Musichetta pointed out.

"Do you not believe in your success?" Bossuet asked, pulling an outraged face.

"A successful Revolution does not mean no corpse," she retorted.

For a single moment – a second only, barely one beat of his heart – Bossuet admitted to himself that she had every reason to be worried. He wasn't such a good fighter and neither was Joly who was incapable of hurting a fly. If any of Les Amis failed to see the brighter tomorrow that burned already in Enjolras's every speech, well – it certainly wouldn't be Bahorel, he imagined.

It was hard, however, to be truly worried of such dreadful outcome when he was looking at both of his lovers cuddling together, well alive and maybe slightly sleepy. So Bossuet did what he was best at; he grinned.

“You make a good point, but you forget something essential, my love,” he declared. “Joly asked for us to be here fifty years from now – we cannot refuse him anything. Therefore, we'll live. Of, course, by then, you will be known as Madame Joly. I expect this particular detail don't bother you in the slightest, Jolllly?”

“That small detail makes the whole thing even more pleasant,” Joly answered, his grin matching easily Bossuet's.

“Madame Joly?” Musichetta enquired with a smile of her own. “Why not Madame Lesgles?”

“Madame Lesgles would very certainly be poor,” he said.

“She would be happy all the same.” she said.

“So would Monsieur Joly,” Joly added.

A warm feeling settled in Bossuet's chest; he seemed to him that it was the happiest night of his life. It was not a rare feeling – each night with Joly and Musichetta seemed to be happier than the last. He wasn't bored with this feeling at all. He hoped, in fact, it would never fade.

"No, truly, I can see no other future than this. You will be Joly’s wife, and I will be the mistress of you both. What a pleasant life to have!” he grinned and let his head fall on Musichetta’s lap.

The hands of his lovers were immediately on him; he closed his eyes, enjoying their clear affection.

"A very pleasant life indeed," Joly approved after a minute. "Although I've just had a vision of you in one of Musichetta's dress, and I'm afraid it didn't really suit you."

"It's true," Musichetta said. "Joly would be much prettier than you in a dress if I were to guess, actually."

"...What?" Joly asked.

"Maybe both of us should try one, one day," Bossuet suggested, "so we could settle this clearly."

"What?" Joly repeated.

Bossuet couldn't help it. He laughed. Musichetta joined him quickly and Joly could never resist laughter so it wasn't long before he gave in. Soon they were all giggling like mad people.

"We are so tired," Joly managed to say.

"We'll go to bed in five minutes," Musichetta agreed.

Bossuet nodded against her thigh. She was warm, like the fire, like Joly's hands who must have lost their purple shade now, like his heart, beating steadily in his chest. Everything around him was so _warm_ – it was exactly what life should be like, always, he mused, and began to drift to sleep, utterly content. 


End file.
